The Royal Adelaide, captained by John Batty, left Cork fully laden with cargo and about 250 passengers on Wednesday, 27 March 1850, touching off at Plymouth on the Thursday evening. By the time the ship left Plymouth for London at 3.00am on Friday, there were almost 300 deck passengers.
The ship was lost at about 11.00pm on Saturday, 30 March 1850 on Tongue Sands north of Margate, with the loss of all on board. News only reached London late on Sunday as the river pilot waiting for the ship happened to meet a Deal pilot (Charles Gillham) who reported seeing a ship of a similar description in distress the previous evening (London Illustrated News 6 and 13 April 1850).
The dead included more than 150 deck passengers from Ireland, during a time when the Great Famine was at its height.
The Royal Adelaide at the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich
SS Waratah was a passenger and cargo steamship built in 1908 for the Blue Anchor Line to operate between Europe and Australia. In July 1909, on only her second voyage, the ship, en route from Durban to Cape Town along the coast of what is present-day South Africa, disappeared with 211 passengers and crew aboard. No trace of her has ever been found, and her fate remains unknown.
RMS Amazon was a wooden three-masted barque, paddle steamer and Royal Mail Ship. She was the first of 5 sister ships commissioned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company to serve RMSP's routes between Southampton and the Caribbean.
SS Koombana was a passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1908 for the Adelaide Steamship Company, for coastal liner services between Fremantle and the northwest coast of Western Australia. She sank in a tropical cyclone somewhere off Port Hedland in 1912, with the loss of all 150 people aboard. Her loss was one of Australia's worst weather-related maritime disasters in the twentieth century.
HMS Courageux was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 March 1800 at Deptford. She was designed by Sir John Henslow as one of the large class 74-gun ships, and was the only ship built to her draught. Unlike the middling and common class 74-gun ships, which carried 18-pounder long guns, as a large 74-gun ship, Courageux carried 24-pounders on her upper gun deck.
SS Gothenburg was an iron-hulled sail- and steamship that was built in England in 1854 and sailed between England and Sweden until 1862. She then moved to Australia, where she operated across the Tasman Sea to and from New Zealand until 1873, when she was rebuilt. After her rebuild, she operated in the Australian coastal trade.
HMS Hindostan was a 56-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was originally the East Indiaman Hindostan, launched in 1789, that the Admiralty bought in 1795. She is known for two events, her voyage to China between 1792 and 1794 when she carried Lord Macartney on a special embassy to China, and her loss in a fire at sea in 1804.
Mayflower was an English sailing ship that transported a group of English families, known today as the Pilgrims, from England to the New World in 1620. After 10 weeks at sea, Mayflower, with 102 passengers and a crew of about 30, reached what is today the United States, dropping anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November 21 [O.S. November 11], 1620.
The MVRoyal Iris is a twin screw, diesel-electric, Mersey Ferry. The vessel was built by William Denny & Brothers of Dumbarton and launched in December 1950, costing £256,000.
Sea Serpent was an 1850 extreme clipper that sailed in the San Francisco trade, the China trade, and the transatlantic lumber trade. She was one of the longest lived clippers, with a service life of 36 years and 5 months.
The Artemisia was the first immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay bringing the first assisted free settlers from England. She was a barquentine of 492 tons built at Sunderland in 1847 and owned by A. Ridley. Under her master, Captain John Prest Ridley, the Artemisia arrived in Moreton Bay in December 1848.
The SV Argo was an American wooden sailing vessel (SV) designed for the trans-Atlantic Packet trade. William Whitlock, Jr acquired the ship for his Havre-Whitlock Line, which regularly scheduled round trips three times a year from New York City to Le Havre, France.
The SS Nile was an iron-hulled cargo steamship. She is best remembered for her sinking in bad weather on 30 November 1854 with the loss of all hands, most likely after colliding with The Stones, a notoriously dangerous reef off Godrevy Head in Cornwall.
Caroline was built at Cochin, British India, in 1825. She sailed to the United Kingdom and took up British registry. She then sailed between England and India under a license from the British East India Company (EIC). She made one voyage transporting convicts from Ireland to Australia. Later, she carried immigrants to Australia. She was wrecked in March 1850.
TSS Train Ferry No. 2 was a freight vessel built for the British Army War Office in 1917.
Hooghly was a full-rigged merchant ship built on the Thames, England, and launched in 1819. She made two voyages under charter to the British East India Company (EIC), four voyages transporting convicts from England and Ireland to Australia, as well as voyages transporting emigrants to South Australia between 1839 and 1856. Around 1858 she was re-rigged as a barque. She sank off Algiers in 1863.
The New Zealand Company was a 19th-century English company that played a key role in the colonisation of New Zealand. The company was formed to carry out the principles of systematic colonisation devised by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who envisaged the creation of a new-model English society in the southern hemisphere. Under Wakefield's model, the colony would attract capitalists who would then have a ready supply of labour—migrant labourers who could not initially afford to be property owners, but who would have the expectation of one day buying land with their savings.
HMS Glenmore was a 36-gun Amazon-class frigate designed by William Rule for the Royal Navy. Tweed had been the intended name when she was laid down in March of 1795 but this was changed before her launch in March 1796. A fifth rate, the ship carried a main battery of twenty-six 18-pounder (8.2-kilogram) long guns on her gun deck.
Lady Kennaway was launched in Calcutta in 1816. In 1819 and thereafter she sailed between England and India under a license from the British East India Company (EIC). In 1823 she was sold in London. She made three voyages under charter to the EIC. In 1835 and again in 1851 she made voyages transporting convicts to Tasmania. On one voyage some of the convicts were young men for the Pankhurst apprentice scheme. In between, in 1836, she transported convicts to New South Wales. She made five voyages carrying immigrants to Australia, including young Irish women for the Earl Grey Irish Famine Orphan scheme. In 1847 her crew abandoned her in the Bay of Biscay although she seemed to have sustained little damage; she was salvaged and returned to service. She was finally wrecked on 25 November 1857 at South Africa.
SS Rotorua was a New Zealand Shipping Company steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship that was built in Scotland in 1910 and sunk by a U-boat in 1917.
RMS Orama was a British steam ocean liner and Royal Mail Ship. She was launched in 1911 for the Orient Steam Navigation Company. When new, she was the largest liner sailing between Great Britain and Australia.
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